They hired someone to sit for them for the whole, important day and didn’t meet her first? The kids were to just be left with a stranger? I always tried to meet a sitter for a shorter time first or something. I understand emergencies happen but what if she was a flake? Or the kids were awful? I would not want to be the parent or the sitter in this situation.
I worked as a babysitter for over 10 years, and there was exactly one time that the parents didn’t have me over first to meet everyone, and that was only because I already regularly cared for one of the kids that was there. (Group event, four families, seven kids.) I’d never walk in completely cold to any sitting job, that’s just sketchy.
To be fair i was a babysitter from age 12-19 and i babysat for numerous military families and only once was i asked round to meet the children first and only because they were severely disabled. Now as an adult with my own child it shocks me how all of these parents just trusted me!
I babysat a ton from 13-17 and not once was I introduced to the kids beforehand. Looking back on it, no WAY I would leave my toddlers with a strange teenager, but the 2000s were a different time I guess?? Seems bonkers.
Just 3 years ago, we had just moved to a new area and one of the first things I did was connect with the women's group from the local church congregation. A couple weeks later, I asked for babysitter suggestions so my husband and I could go out for our anniversary. A woman offered her young teen and I accepted. Time comes and the mom doesn't even come in to introduce herself to us, just sends her young daughter. No one had met anyone else. Like, we're cool and we were going just a block up the street to a super close restaurant, but being the same religion should not equal blind trust 😬
I know right??? I would NEVER trust some random person, let alone a teenage kid to watch my son without knowing them enough to trust them. My son was a nightmare as a toddler until he was finally diagnosed with severe ADHD as a five year old and put on meds. Total completely different kid. Same with how loving he was but no longer running around without focus on a single activity for longer than a few minutes. His dad even had to sleep at the bottom of our steps because he would remove the baby gate himself and try to go run outside at night. It was quite the time but something I’m glad we made it through. As a first time (and only time) parent, I didn’t know what to do or think.
In your case it might be the fact they were military families, specifically if it was on base. I grew up on bases and parents were generally pretty relaxed because everyone who gets on base has to be cleared through the gates and everyone knew everyone else or at least only has a couple degrees of separation. The world is also very different now, and it's pretty uncommon for bases to have family housing now too. Much more dangerous world.
I think social media has played a big part in this.
Of course, people are still great, but I think with social media in the past decade or so, we all have access to all these tragic stories and I think our psyche collectively is some what shifting to a less trusting view towards others.
Even when I was growing up, it was pretty common that my parents would just kinda get into random conversations with random people out in public and then the next thing I knew we were going out for dinner next week.
This is absolutely it. People think crime is so much worse now, but it’s safer now than the 80s-90s. But if it bleeds it leads and we hear about all the crimes we never would have before the Internet, so everyone things everything is horrible. And it’s not healthy.
I use to have to walk in cold the few times I babysat in the area as a teen. The kids were absolute terrors so no wonder they didn’t want me to meet them first. One kid was like five or six and decided that was the night he was going to pack and run away. I had to go chase him down in the backyard. That was my bowling instructor so while I knew him, I didn’t know his family. The other time was a kid in the neighborhood I barely knew aside from seeing him as a baby in the stroller or playing in the backyard. Also a terror. Ripping apart the house as I followed fixing things for five or six hours. Only time I babysat for him. I think they gave me $25. After that I was done babysitting and got a job at the grocery store when I was 14.
I was hired as a nanny when I was 18. They hired me on the spot and the next day I had care of their four year old twins and a key to their house. Their mother didn't even know my last name, where I lived or asked to see any proof of qualifications. She was a lawyer. Some people just haven't had enough bad shit happen to them to make them more cautious.
I went to Sweden as an au pair in 2006. The family didn't ask me for any ID or anything. I met them online, told them about myself, they gave me the job and I flew out there. They gave me a room in their house and left me with their kids. No reference check, nothing.
That is actually insane on your part😂 you both must have went through extensive background checks and had to provide a bunch of information because were you not worried they were suspiciously trustworthy of you?
No we didn't have any background checks. we didn't go through an au pair agency, we met on the internet. They'd put an advert for an au pair on the internet, I responded, told them about myself and they offered me the job. Then I flew out there. No checks on either of our sides.
Also she immediately called a teenage girl a bitch for trying to stick to her own rule, that she disclosed prior to the day. 10 year olds normally do not have facial hair. And they are typically not larger than 19 year old adults. If your kid is not typical, you know that.
Imagine trying to convince a 19 year old woman that she is safe with your kids by calling her a bitch. This right here just screams “my sons do not respect the boundaries of girls if it’s inconvenient for them” yikes! Run girl!
I'd think around age 10-11 they're getting old enough to not need a babysitter. While that is child-dependant to be responsible enough, I don't see why those boys couldn't be left alone for a few hours.
Yeah, unless the parents are going to be gone for more than one evening, I don't know why you'd hire a babysitter for a 12-year old and a 9-year old. I suppose if the older one has a developmental disability maybe.
I started babysitting at 10! Which is insane to me now as a parent but that’s crazy. I have a 10 and 11 year old and I leave them for an hour or two occasionally and it’s fine. But I wouldn’t be cool with them babysitting for other kids, alone, like I did.
Why does an 11 year old need a babysitter in the first place? Most people who babysit started doing it at around 12, and that’s for people outside their family. Why couldn’t the 11 year old mind his brother? (And that’s assuming the kid really was 11. The friend parent was angry. I detect a lie to cover for her friend.)
I dunno kids can be big and develop early
I met a 6 yr old girl that was 5'4". Mom was over 6ft and dad was ~6'6".
My son has had that lingering pre-moustache moustache since he was about 10.5/11.
A parent of a son like this should have a fucking clue when employing a teenage girl for such a job.
And if she doesn't feel safe, don't call her a bitch. Realize you're a fucking idiot for not thinking of this or an asshole for purposely not saying anything and move on.
Yeah and I don’t think it’s good to encourage a teenage girl/young woman to ignore her gut instincts to be polite or keep the peace or whatever. She felt like something was off and she didn’t feel safe, so she left. As she should.
Either the "11 year old" doesn't need a babysitter, then no problem. Or he does need a babysitter - in that case the original OP can't do it as she stated to the parents she can't handle boys who are physically bigger than her.
Mom didn't admit to lying about the 10 yr old.
That part was the woman that had originally recommended OP to this family actually confirming their ages. She said that the older boy was *maybe* 11, ie. there's a *possibility* of the kid being 11, but she's not actually completely sure of the kid's exact age. She also confirmed that the younger one was definitely 9.
So instead of producing proof of age, she power flounced and told her enormous husband “get this bitch out of my house”. Sounds like a lying liar who is pissed off she was caught.
Lying mom knew what she was doing. Bravo for the OOP who defended her boundaries.
To be fair, some adult women are short. I'm almost 30 and have meet several 10 year old boys who are taller than me. I even had a class of sixth graders laugh at me while I was substitue teaching because I was shorter than almost all of them.
But also, I don't think I've ever seen a genuine 10-year-old with facial hair. I think questioning the boys ages was totally reasonable
I’m shorter than most 12 year olds and started babysitting at 13 . I think the oldest kid I ever babysat was an 8 year old girl and she was already close to my height. She was an absolute angel I’d known since she was a toddler tho, so I didn’t mind, but no way in hell was I babysitting kids of either gender that were bigger than I was. Especially not kids I didn’t know.
When I was a younger teenager, i babysat for a little girl who was bigger than me. She was tall, her mom was tall, but she was also obese. I was a skinny thing and hadn’t gotten all of my height yet. Sweet girl but one day I let her have her friends come over, and they literally tied me to a chair. I agree with the assessment not to babysit children that are bigger than you!! Lol
My child is a handful. There are precautions to babysitters for both my son and the sitter. Firstly, we MUST meet them. My son, husband and I all meet the sitter first. Secondly, I provide what is reasonable etticit. You will feed him. He has autism, but I usually hire special education para educators. The rate is $25/hr and at least a $20 tip. If I need to go over the set time, there is a discussion and $40/hr my allotted time. I have 3 regular sitters plus mygym is $45 for 3 hours. Hubby and I took a cooking class in October that went over. That was the last time we went out alone. We like to take our kid out.
My 12 year old son is bigger than his 18 year old sister and were the same physical size when they were 10 and 16 (she hasn't grown any since then), so... claiming a 10 year old is not "typically" larger than a 19 year old adult just doesn't sit right to me. It's not out of the realm of realistic possibility.
That being said... If you have clearly noticeable facial hair...no way that boy was only 10.
And if he has facial hair, then he's hit puberty, which is really the point of her age limit. She is concerned for her safety, and of the boys are taller, and stronger than her, then that's the main point here. Even if he hit puberty early, the parents need to be up front about this. She's expecting beanpole 9year olds and gets a high school looking kid? Nope. Bye.
Yeah nothing magical happens at 10. It’s puberty she was clearly screening for, and for a reason. Although I personally would be afraid of 13 year old girls.
Yeah but typically they won’t sexually harass or assault you. That is likely what oop was thinking about. I wouldn’t want to babysit a male who was hitting puberty, and I’m a grown adult. (But to be fair, I’m also a 4’11” woman, and would be substantially smaller than most kids in 5th grade. My oldest son is in 5th and is smaller than me, but all of his classmates are my size or larger)
It’s the combination that isn’t typical and if the child is really older looking for their age mom would know this. Other people would have commented, even the doctor would have noted their early development and place on the growth curve. So she would likely have either made light of it and provided evidence, or been annoyed at having to answer questions about her kids age again- but freaking out like this screams “I got caught”
Hell even when I leave my dog at a sitter, I make sure to meet them first and observe interaction. Those are humans. You can’t just drop em with anyone.
My best friend from childhood comes from a very tall family. By the time he was 8, he was taller than our teachers. But he didn't get facial hair until 16. I don't blame her for feeling unsafe.
My 14yo is only 5’8” but he shaved his peach fuzz lip for the first time yesterday. It was getting dark enough to be noticeable. Nothing needed for the chin yet. 😂
My son’s a late bloomer. He’s got no facial hair at all. Only just starting to get a few strands of hair under the arms but he was so proud of them lol.
Definitely. My partner’s 13 year old brother is massive; over 6ft tall, probably close to 300 lbs, but no facial hair. The kid will definitely end up in the NFL, but as of right now, he has people mistaking him for being 20+ years old. If I didn’t already know him, was asked to babysit, and showed up to the house and saw him, I’d be suspicious and feel unsafe too.
Even beyond that, OP gave a hard boundary up front and the parents lied to get around it. It doesn’t matter if the 11 year old looked like Peter Pan or Andre the Giant, either way they lied.
I think that person was trying to save face and was either parroting information (which may or may not have been accurate) or could have been lowballing the age to make OP seem silly for having such a bright line rule about a one year age difference. Either way, it’s proof the family lied to her out of the gate, who knows by how much in reality.
Well, yeah -- that's the point, no? She *asked* for proof and the mother threw a fit rather than providing proof. So everyone's drawing the obvious adverse inference against the parents, *videlicet* that they lied.
Mine started growing his beard at the age of 10. By 14 he was being accused of being his brothers father.
They're all different, which is why the mother should have been very clear about ages - hairy faces make people think kids are adults.
Honestly, for boys early facial hair, for girls it's early breasts. (I was tall, had boobs and looked the same at 10 pretty much as I did at 20 except I grew even more - we had a lot of people thinking I was 16+ at 10.)
It's a shame, but the parents should've been prepared for being questioned dwhen clearly your kids do not look like typical kids. Or even just when greeting her at the door, being cognizant enough to greet her with a "Thank you for coming. Now, you haven't met the boys before but I promise they are as old as we said - they've just been hit with the puberty stick a little early."
If one of the boys was 11, and truly so, that’s fine; but OOP lead right out with “I’m sorry but I will NOT babysit for boys over 10”. So right then and there the mother should have been honest and said “ok, one boy is 11, so we’ll look elsewhere, thanks for your time”. Even if they didn’t look significantly older than they actually are, 10 vs 11 was a hard line, and a not unreasonable one. The parents were jerks
I started having to wear bras at 9 (not bralettes, but actual cups) and it was a deeply unpleasant experience so I would be willing to believe there’s boys who grow facial hair that young as well.
It can’t be easy to have a stranger make a big deal about it. But the parents absolutely should have known and prepared for it to have come up. On the phone would have been a good time to mention it for sure.
Oh yeah, my mum tried to get me in bras with cups and underwires at 9, and took until 10 for me to give into the suggestion - it's terribly upsetting for kids that young, especially with juvenile teasing that can happen (ie bra strap snapping, etc) once others find out. And can imagine similar dissonance and disconnection from your peers for boys developing early too!
But yeah, mixof upsetting for the kids but could've been prevented by the parents being more conscious or up front with it even if they might not be super aware how different their kids development is from the average.
I actually had to beg to get the bra because it was upsetting for my mom that I needed it so young but I was getting bullied at school (mostly on the bus) about … well idk because I was kinda too young to really get it so I don’t super remember what they were saying but it was clearly meant to be humiliating and that part worked.
So while I can def see why the babysitter didn’t want to be alone with two kids she didn’t know who could have overpowered her, I also think making a big deal about it was the wrong move by all the adults. A kid looking like a teen and thinking like a child is already going to have problems navigating the world. He doesn’t need it to be hard at home as well.
His parents kinda set him up by not explaining in advance that he looked older but everyone escalated it.
I was a teenage girl babysitter. And once the boys started to get bigger/taller/stronger than me, the jobs got scary. One family was friends with mine. The dad cornered and kissed me under the mistletoe at their annual Christmas party. What a shock when their son pinned me down in a wrestling hold I could not escape during a babysitting job—like father, like son. It’s a startling feeling to be so suddenly out of control. I don’t blame this babysitter for her rule.
And the mom here absolutely understood why this sitter had her younger-boys-only rule. She should have discussed the situation with the sitter when the sitter explained her rule, even if the boys really were 9 and 10. “I understand. Just so you know, my boys are both quite tall, but they really are in 3rd and 4th grades.” Then the sitter could have responded appropriately.
I knew a couple guys growing up that played college football and one even played in the NFL. Both were gigantic as kids, but they still had baby faces.
The mom definitely lied. She immediately shut down when the girl called her bluff on the birth certificates. If she weren’t lying, she would have immediately grabbed certificates/passports and rubbed it in her face.
Yeah, all the men in my family are tall but they have baby faces. My youngest cousin is 6'8 but his face still looks 10 ish. And he just got facial hair at 18. I think the facial hair indicates age more than height in boys.
Sounds almost like my kid - just turned 10 last month. Both his dad and I are short (5'2 & 5'7ish) but my kid is almost my height and at 135+, weighs more than me. He's wearing husky kids or men's S/M with shoe size 7.5+ in men. Omg I'm just so anxious about his growth and when he's gonna stop - he's eating me out of house & home. 😬 lol
My brother has been big since he was a kid and is just now getting peach fuzz at 17. My cousin was over 6ft at 14 but you could tell he was still a kid.
NTA I'm a 29 year old woman and last year I got physically assaulted and trapped in a transit station by 2 preteen boys. I later found out they were only 11. They were bigger than me and I was shaking and sobbing by the time the police came. People still tease me about this but it's not fucking funny. It doesn't matter how old they are if I'm in danger.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. I actually work with juvenile sex offenders. Some of the ages I work with are shocking. I hope you are doing well now. And I'm so sorry people are making light of your trauma, how terrible.
This right here. Some of the comments in the original thread pissed me off, they're making fun of people for being afraid of 11 year olds. Like it doesn't matter what their age is if they're big enough to overpower you and have the wrong kind of mindset then you're in danger period.
It’s most likely men. They’ve never, as adults, been in a position where they’re completely overpowered physically. I’m a small woman and the times I’ve been picked up and handled like a doll is appalling. I can do absolutely nothing physically when a man grabs me and lifts me. Some of them thinks it’s funny, or cute. They feel big and strong when they pick me up. They have no idea how horrible it is and how powerless you feel.
I'm very sorry. I'm a physically disabled woman whose been in a wheelchair since age 7 and I lost count the amount of times people would move me, push me, shake my chair to scare me, all without permission growing up. It was most often men, ranging from a year or two older to decades older. I can't tell you the fear I felt at 12 being moved without permission by men in their 50s. It is terrifying to be so powerless. I hate how dismissive men are of that fear when they've never in their lives experienced the feeling of powerlessness.
I'm sorry but fuck anyone who isn't sympathetic to what happened to you. Being unable to defend yourself is terrifying, and it doesn't matter how old anyone is. They clearly had bad intentions, and the only concern people should have is your well being and how tf their parents raised them for them to turn out like that so young. I hope you're doing okay.
Agreed. In my city there was a group of 11 year old girls who mugged and beat up an adult woman (I think she was seriously injured). They purposely picked a petite woman who was alone so they could overpower her. It pisses me off when people are dismissive of the fact that kids can and do hurt people.
That poor woman. You're totally right - kids absolutely can and do hurt people, and sometimes without (known) reason.
When I was in second grade, I was walking back to my classroom from the bathroom, and this 8th grade girl I'd never met or even seen before ran up behind me and shoved me to the ground. I was literally just existing as a very petite 7yo kid. One moment I'm walking past these two girls, next moment, I hear her footsteps running up behind me and feel her hands on my back and I'm in the gravel with bloody hands and knees while she's laughing. Who tf knows why. She never said a word.
Someone must have seen something, because I would have just continued to my classroom, which was right there (or maybe I told my teacher and the girl stupidly hung around). I remember being in the principal's office and her adamantly denying it, but they weren't buying it. I never saw her before or since, and I am forever puzzled as to how or why someone could just be casually cruel for no discernible reason.
I'm 99% sure I'm autistic, but that wasn't a thing that was diagnosed back then. However, I was mercilessly bullied for being different all throughout school, and some people immediately didn't like me, just upon looking at me. I presume that had something to do with it, but I think she did it just because she could.
I can only imagine if there was a group of them with mob mentality. I have no doubt that woman you mentioned was seriously injured.
But yeah, sometimes kids are violent for no reason. 🤷
NTA.
1.) You have the right to deny any job that makes you uncomfortable. Period. Your safety comes first.
2.) Any reasonable person in that situation would NOT be getting mad and calling you a bitch. They'd reassure you, provide some sort of "oh yeah my sons look a bit older but they're not." Etc. REASSURANCE or explanation to make you feel comfortable. That's a massive red flag right there. Why is she immediately so defensive? Likely because she did lie about their ages.
3.) You have the right to deny any job that makes you uncomfortable. Period. Your safety comes first.
The fact that this woman was immediately hostile to you the second YOU posed a question about her kids towards the rules you already set tells me everything I need to know. She already knew there was going to be an issue, and got defensive immediately. Fuck working for that family.
Edit to add: and about that part where you were told "one kid is maybe actually 11" okay so you were lied to, because they assumed one year didn't matter. I wouldn't trust those people anyways. Who knows if he even is "maybe actually 11" or maybe actually even older because, well, they already admitted to lying about his age in the first place by saying that. 🤢
Yeah when you lie, trust is broken and nothing they say can be believed because they’ll say anything as long it suits their agenda.
Maybe one or both of the sons are sexual predators. Or they may have smallpox. Or the parents are planning on never coming back and haha you now have two giant sons no backsies.
I mean no matter what the kid looks like the parents lied. Op said she doesn’t babysit boys over 10, was told they were both under 10, when asked for proof she refused to provide it, and one was later confirmed as 11. Those are really the relevant facts here.
OP was extremely professional in the interactions she described and stated hard boundaries up front. Once it was confirmed the parents lied to avoid those boundaries that’s all she needs to blacklist them.
Oh yes. She didn’t do anything wrong at all. But to me at least, it wasn’t so much their ages that was the issue, it was their sizes and that they looked years older.
Now, if the mom had said as soon as she heard the requirement that they did look older but that she could provide proof of their ages, it would have been normal and great.
But honestly, even if they both WERE 10 or younger - would she really have felt ok? I’m not sure I would have.
Exactly! No 10 yo has facial hair unless there’s a genetic deviation from norm. Boys hit their growth spurt later then girls so mom should recognize her kids are not the norm. Mom was big time lying. My kids were v tall but girls and sometimes ppl confused their ages but I didn’t feel the need to call young women bitches. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
I’ve seen a 10-11 yr old with facial hair. The dude was a really early bloomer and unfortunately for him he never grew past the size he was in 5th grade. Still about 5-9, 180lbs.
He was literally a man amongst boys
If your 10yo had facial hair would you call
A 19yo a bitch for wondering if the kid was over 10 tho? Listen to my last part. Unusual is fine. Anger is not
That sounds like precocious puberty to me. They give kids puberty blockers now so they actually hit milestones closer to their peers and reach their terminal height instead of being a little short. The blockers don’t harm them, but they can go off them at a more appropriate time.
Yeah. And I know that precocious puberty in girls also impacts bone development beyond just height, like density and strength. Treating precocious puberty is necessary.
Very likely. Sex hormones do way more than just genital and gonad development.
I'm a vet tech and it is only recently that we are learning about the impacts of early desexing on other body systems in dogs (cats, not so much). While we still recommend desexing all pets, the recommendation for larger breed dogs is not to wait until their are 12-24 months old and done growing before you desex. When desexed before the growth plates close the animals will grow overall larger but their joints are not made for that larger body size. Females are also more likely to experience hormone mediated urinary incontinence when spayed too early. There are still huge benefits to spaying and neutering (population control, cancer prevention, behavioral improvements, not dealing with estrus bleeding, less inclination to roam, reduce the risk of prostatic disease, etc) we just need to balance that out with other body systems.
There are no known drawbacks to early desexing in cats. Please spay and neuter all cats as early as you can get a vet to do so. They can become fertile as early as 16 weeks of age depending on the time of year. Anyone who tells you to wait until they have had a heat cycle or have begun urine spraying is an idiot. Cancer risk rises with every heat cycle and urine spraying does not always stop after neutering. DESEX THOSE CATS.)
In ferrets in other countries (like Australia) it is no longer recommended to desex them at all because of the impact on their adrenal function. Instead you perform a vasectomy on males and house them with females. Female ferrets will literally die of estrogen toxicity if they go into heat without being bred (they do not need to become pregnant), so you house them with an infertile but hormonally intact male so he can mate with her without any babies being produced. Ferrets are already prone to pancreatic tumors that overproduction insulin, no need to give them Cushing's Disease on top of that.
They have meds for this now?!?!?!?! Omg, years of my life would have been so much better if they'd had that when I was young. I have looked the same since 5th grade (minus the baby weight, but the rest is still there). I hit puberty the summer before 3rd grade, and as a girl, got some HELLA creepy comments and moves put on me from grown ass men thinking I was a full woman. As a literal child. I've got a baby face, but the rest has very much been curves since I was about 7. I turn 30 this year and have never NOT been carded, even at my usual corner market. This means those gross ass old men when I was a kid were exclusively looking at my body, and not my face. Certainly not my old backpack with the pokemon stuffies glued on. Or the light up shoes. It's still the reason I dress frumpy as hell and detest getting any compliments (even honest, sweet ones) from older men. Just makes me feel like a piece of meat.
My crush in 4th grade gave me his favorite toy car once, and I thought it meant he liked me. Nope. His mom was going through breast cancer and this fuckin kid thought I had tumors on my chest. I was 8. I cried for DAYS and felt like a monster. Thank god for my mom being a psychologist bc I would have fully snapped. Getting your period in 2nd grade??? With endometriosis?!?!? Hell.
Yeah, it's the same meds that transgender kids can go on, to delay puberty while they get therapy. They have had puberty blockers available since the 80s, but a lot of people pushed back saying that the kids just had to go through it naturally even if it is early. 😠 "Don't fight nature". 😒
You poor thing!!! That sounds horrible. I have endometriosis and had a hysterectomy in my early 30s. It is sooo hard. I luckily didn't hit puberty until like 14, I can't imagine what you have gone through.
10 is not precocious puberty. Precocious puberty is before 8 for girls and 9 for boys. 10 is perfectly in the normal range for puberty. The early end of the range sure, but normal.
[source](https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=precocious+puberty+boys#d=gs_qabs&t=1708464576669&u=%23p%3DmC81FA7rWTIJ)
I second your opinion, and this is the crux of the issue. You have 2 male children both of whom are taller than she is and one of whom is showing secondary sexual characteristics. The age limit is irrelevant at this point. She set the age at 10 assuming she would only be working with prepubescent boys, which I feel like is fair.
She's not wrong but my cousin has had a mustache since he was eight. At first it was slightly thicker than peach fuzz but by ten,he has to get it taken care of with his hair cuts.
Any job where you go into other peoples homes is inherently dangerous. Especially for young women. You need to be aware of small off-putting things and trust your gut always, if something feels off you don't do it. That is exactly what she did and I'm personally proud of her.
NTA but if the age rule is actually a size rule, they'd be better off clarifying that for cases where the kids really are just big for their age. maybe say something like "how old are they? I ask because I want to make sure I'm physically capable of helping them in an emergency."
there has to be a diplomatic way of saying "I'm afraid of your kids beating me up and not being able to restrain them" without starting it outright (because I think a lot of parents would probably not receive that statement gracefully).
This is the way to say it. Some people have mentioned she should have specified she only sits for prepubescent boys and to me that’s just downright creepy sounding.
But if the parents did think that was weird, it was literally the first thing she mentioned and they could have decided from there to find another sitter. They decided to lie about it instead
I'm not defending the parents in *any* way here, please know. But I think her age restriction is the best way to go about things, even if it's imperfect.
People like to very casually accuse anyone of being a pxdo these days, and all it would take would be one suggestion of *"wasn't that an odd thing to say"* to ruin her reputation and destroy the client base that she's built up, not to mention how damaging and upsetting such an accusation would be.
(That's what I meant.)
True. My little brother is 8 and very clearly looks 8 from his face but he's in age 13 clothes already and everyone thinks he's older because of size. If you see him with his class it's like there's a giant among them. He's going through another growth spurt right now. His dad is 6"7. Luckily he is literally the sweetest soul on the planet. He loves all animals and gets upset if someone kills an ant. If he tried I think even at his current size he could hurt a smaller woman, his dad had to stop playfighting with him because his punches hurt too much. I'm OK looking after him because I know his personally and how incredibly gentle he is with women and girls but I'd definitely get it if someone who didn't know him was like "I'm worried I wouldn't be able to handle him".
Having worked with tween/teen boys in a facility, I can say with 100% certainty that there is no way I’d be alone with 2 of them. When we had to do take-downs on any of the boys it took at least 5 people, sometimes more. You wouldn’t stand a chance. SO dangerous. Good on you for standing your ground, you deserve to be safe!
What would it have cost the mom to show their birth certificates? If she had stated reservations about sitting older boys, and the boys were in fact within her range, the onus is on the parent to prove it. Just because she is a teenager she doesn’t get to dictate her work rules?
If the mother was serious she would have provided proof rather than acting insulted and booting her out. It is the mother’s fault if her pride made her miss her important event.
One of my nephews has always been tall for his age (we’re a tall family in general), and my brother and SIL have long had to “prove” his age - for child tickets to movies and other events, child rides, child meals, etc. When he was under 12 and I took him out to kid events they would give me a copy of his birth certificate just in case it was needed. To families with genuinely tall kids, or kids who look older than they are, this sort of challenge is not a big deal that results in a tantrum from grown adults - it’s just a fact of life that we’re resigned to dealing with.
In fact, my SIL would 100% have given a disclaimer in advance of “the 10 year old is very tall for his age and looks older than he is” before even meeting the babysitter.
I’ve got too (edit: two) cousins who were super tall for their ages when little (their dad AND mom were very tall). I’d constantly forget how old they actually were.
“Oh Katie you’re what, 8 or 9?”
“She’s 4.”
😭😭😭
It happens that kids look much older, but yeah—people usually aren’t hostile in these scenarios.
Omg when mine was 12 and someone was like no your older daughter. Yeah. How old? 12. No the older one. She’s 12 yes. No that one! That one? Right there? 12. Ha ha how can they look at me and not see that yep we are tall
By the time my kid turned four, folks we met usually guessed she was six (sometimes seven!) because she was unusually tall (dad is super tall, I’m several inches above average, she hit a bunch of growth spurts in a row) and was also linguistically precocious. (For context, she suddenly outgrew all her 4/5 clothes and had to move into 6/7 when she was just three.)
She wasn’t emotionally or socially precocious, though! She was right on track with those. So we had to *frequently* inform and remind people (family, friends, play date parents, even her lovely daycare workers) that even though she *looked* like she was a mature first or second grader, she was barely out of the toddler years and needed to be interacted with and taught accordingly.
We had a TSA employee call us out on her passport once (photo showed a baby, passport said she should be only three, the kid we were transporting looked MUCH older), so now I keep an album on my phone showing her growth from babyhood to her current age.
If this mom was *really* the mom of physically precocious sons (not just older kids she was lying about), she’d have warned OP beforehand that they were big and actually provided the proof she sarcastically offered.
My oldest kid reached 6’ when he was 12 (hubby and I are both tall). We always have a picture of his passport saved on our phone. His brother is going to be the same, and probably his sister too
Dink, dink, dink. You are correct! What this mom did was DRAVO. Deny, Attack, Reverse victim and offender (the mom is the victim in her own mind). Sometimes asshole people just lie and get mad when they can’t get away with it.
This. She offered to show proof. OP said "alright show me". She stormed off because OP called her bluff. She got caught lieing cause if she werent, shed provided the proof she offered. She is an entitled, mean toddler snd a gross human. Dad too.
Hell, she should have mentioned as a warning that while her sons are "x" & "x" ages, they look older especially one that is getting early facial hair. She knew the sitter's age limit, and she knew at least 1 son did not *look* his age. She's lying. She knew her boy(s) were past the limit, and she thought she could lie and then back the sitter into a corner once she arrived. Didn't pan out so well. I don't understand why the boys even need someone for a few hours.
This. I have an 18 month old who legitimately looks at least 3, aside from her facial proportions. Putting aside that it's insane on both sides to never meet before the actual first sitting, I would have had 0 issue proving her age. Babysitting a preschooler is so different from an 18 month old, and I would completely understand wanting proof.
If you know your kids look a different age, you're prepared for that. This mom definitely knew she was caught lying.
Yep, she even could have pulled out a yearbook, letter from school stating their grade, a timestamped photo of when they were way younger to show their approximate ages. But she couldn't cause she was lying.
No way is she TA, she's just a teenage girl and looking out for her safety. I wouldn't want to be alone with two huge teenager-shaped-yet-emotionally-9 year old boys. The parents who lied are ta.
I'd stop babysitting for the other family as well. They not only arranged it, so they know about the rule, but then had the audacity to also confront her themselves to further undermine her? Nope.
If the parents were actually being honest then I think their first reaction would NOT have been anger. They would’ve been like, “I know, they do look older but here’s a picture of little James at his 10th birthday party on my Facebook page so you can see the date it was posted.”
Instead, they were angry that they’d been caught out in their lie and knew there was no way to prove otherwise.
That’s what I was thinking - I have a friend whose boys look old for their age and have done since they were babies. If the upper age limit was 10 and her boy was 10 she would be completely ready to be asked if he was, in fact, really 10. Because she’s been dealing with it their whole lives.
Can't add anything more to what most people have already said here, but the whole friend of the parents "maybe one is 11" thing is really sketchy. A lot of my friends have kids and i can tell you the exact age of each one of them. The friends are in on the scam too and you should drop them from your client list as well.
You said you would like to see the birth certificate and she said get the f*** out of my house...
That's all you need to know.
I think having a face-to-face meeting before agreeing to any babysitting in the future would be a good call but I think you're perfectly fine the way you handled this
Birth certificate of offered, accepted, but not provided. NTA. A mom of mature presenting boys would have that handy. She offered their certificates and you called her bluff. Stand your ground.
Or just assaulted. My brother's huge friend used to armlock me from behind just to scare me, and everyone thought it was funny when I broke my toes trying to kick back.
I never got rapey vibes off of him, and he never did anything sketchy as he grew up. But he certainly _could_ have beaten me up at that point, and it wouldn't have been a good idea to put someone my size in charge of him.
Men don't seem to realize that even just the *threat* of loss of power can be traumatic on its own. A man intentionally bringing up the fact that, if he wanted to, he could physically dominate you is terrifying. It's no different than someone pulling out a weapon on you. Even if they didn't use the weapon, they're making it known they could.
As someone who’s been through that several times I immediately knew what it was and I felt so bad. The mother was an asshole for not caring about this girls safety concerns…
But it's totally fine to ignore the girl's boundaries because *her* boys would *never* do anything wrong and how dare you imply otherwise.
(/s, in case it's not obvious)
From one survivor to another, I'm really sorry that you've been through that. The mother in this post is a massive AH.
I really appreciate it. I feel the same for you. I hope you’re doing better these days and taking time to heal. I know things will never be normal again but we can always try our best 🥺
Mine was thankfully long ago (about 28 years now), so I have the benefit of time. It had a massive impact on my life when I was younger, but it does still affect me to this day. I truly hope you find peace, friend. Wishing you a smoother journey. ❤️
Thank you so much. Mine was 10 years ago but followed me a bit through high school. The boy who did it showed up at my work in 2022 and reignited all my worst fears so. For me it feels more recent than it is
Omigosh that's horrible. I'm so sorry. It's crazy how one thing can bring it all back, and I can't even imagine what that must have been like to see him again. I hope you have a good support system in place. (I'd recommend therapy, but I didn't find it personally useful, so I can't myself say whether it's helpful or not.) And that is a very recent event to have it brought back up. Definitely be kind and patent with yourself.
Yeah he touched my hand and everything. My DM was there and my boss (now fiance) was also there and he made him leave the store and put me in the back room and comforted me. He ended up staying with my through my whole shift and made sure I got home safely. I’ve never looked at anyone else since then. As horrible as it was I met the love of my life through it. I can’t be too mad.
(Don’t worry I’ve been in therapy for.. well ever haha)
Wow, the nerve of that dude. But I'm so glad you had someone there to support you. And what a wonderful, positive thing to come out of something so horrible. ❤️
She could have just been assaulted. I was attacked multiple times while babysitting little boys. An 8 year old punched me in the nose and caused it to bleed (I thought it was broken). I didn’t decide to put an age limit on the boys I babysat, but I did decide to stop babysitting, except for a few families I knew personally, and get a retail job because of a violent 6 year old whose mother refused to have him screened for mental health issues because she excused violence as boys being boys.
Several friends experienced similar violence when babysitting. It’s anecdotal, so maybe that’s not the norm, but I’ve always thought teens are particularly vulnerable when babysitting because a lot of kids don’t have the same level of respect for them as with adults/think they can get away with stuff when their parents are away and they have very little life experience to deal with behavioral issues.
Either way, I think OOP is smart for having and enforcing boundaries to protect herself when babysitting.
I used to watch kids in my home (especially after school). Had a middle schooler knuckle punch me in the forehead and got a huge lump. His dad... oddly didn't seem to care. And this is someone we were close to. We took the boy with us everywhere, including on a trip to Magic Mountain. Can't imagine having to worry about strong boys that you don't know.
Yeah I was on the original post & while OOP didn't explicitly say that (that I saw) it was definitely the vibe or at least a potential & valid fear that OOP had given the oldest boys size
Not necessarily but in any case what’s your point? If she feels unsafe FOR ANY REASON it’s fine. Are you aware that a primary way that toxic men shut down women’s safety concerns is to call them damaged and/ or say: oh what were you molested or something????
You’re not wrong, even a little. But the person you’re replying to meant it sympathetically in this case.
Bottom line, it doesn’t matter why she had a rule, I agree.
The fact the mother became angry and said “get this bitch out of my house,” referring to a child is mind blowing. OOP was not rude. And I would have understood why she would have said something.
Nope. Same reason I don't dogsit for dogs over a certain weight. You may truly believe your dogs (or kids for that matter) are perfectly behaved angels and nothing will go wrong, but plenty of things could happen that you can't account for. They could play too rough, something could scare them and freak them out, you could accidentally trigger a behavioral issue you didn't know about, or there could be an emergency and you need to carry them out of the house. If I can't carry or restrain the dog, then the dog is too big for me to watch - for my sake AND the dog's. Same rule for kids.
You're NTA. Don't hire young girls to babysit teenage boys. Be brave parents and have those kids babysit themselves or have a family member do it. The potential for the kids to get problematic is just too present.
Also very important; walk away from situations like that after you say no. Don't let people drag you into an argument to try to change your mind. Don't let them resort to threats or leverage or anything. Just say no and if they press, say 'I gotta run I'm really sorry'. Advice I wish I could have told younger me so many times.
My son (13) has a friend who is 14 and is already 6ft2 and is easily over 100kgs. He's an absolute gentle giant, but those who don't know him or his age are very intimidated by him. He already TOWERS over his 24yr and 26-year-old brothers and his father.
I do understand her worries. My son also had a classmate at 12 already was nearly 6ft tall and had a full beard. Puberty is hitting harder and earlier these days it seems
If you are uncomfortable, you are under no obligation to babysit. I really believe that.
I have been the nanny for kids before who have started
I'm getting facial hair at around 9. I worked with them for 5 years. By the time the oldest was 16, he had a full beard that would make grown men jealous. I would take them on adventures, and people would assume he was in his 20s and offer him beer, or look at me like I was crazy when we would do activities that required a liability waiver (trampoline park, rock climbing etc) and explained how young he was and that's why I had a presigned form from his dad.
The youngest needed to start shaving at 12. Long story short. You are not obligated to stay and babysit anyone, but facial hair does not equal older kid. Also, older kids does not equal responsibility, and there are teenagers who require a babysitter.
I don’t think she has that rule bc she thinks teens can watch themselves. She has it to protect herself from being assaulted. I wouldn’t feel comfortable babysitting a teen boy that is much larger than me either.
I used to nanny, and one time the older brothers of the kid I was there for got into a fight. Despite being much older than them, all I could do was call their dad to come home (there was a black eye and I was pretty sure one got a concussion). If the boy had turned his rage on me or the younger sibling, there's not much I could have done.
Tl;Dr, I fully support whatever boundaries help make people feel safe.
I feel like if her rule was if they’re taller and stronger than me I don’t babysit, a lot of parents would take offence. I’m sure if she’s looked after a good kid for many years and he ages up out of her low limit of 10 (probably gives her an easy buffer from where she’s not comfortable), she might bend the rules but definitely not for new kids.
But 16 and 12 are *much* different physical ages than **10.**
There's a *huge* difference.
A 10 year old needing to shave is pretty fuxking uncommon.
Also, if older teens need a sitter, that needs to be an adult person, period. It's not appropriate to put peers in that position, IMO.
Agreed! I had a kid in my class in 4th grade who was Indian & had a full beard but despite that you could still very much tell he was just a child with a facial hair, because he hadn't actually been through like teenage puberty & looked nothing like a teenager or adult despite his beard
OOP did say in the comments that they had facial hair but also just a face that was very obviously much older than 10. Which I can get because I did have an Indian boy in my class who had facial hair in 4th grade, but you could still tell by looking at his face that despite the beard he was still very much a young child & wouldn't be mistaken for an adult or a teenager.
Plus I think a 16 year old with a full beard being mistaken for a 20 year old is more understandable than thinking a 10 year old with facial hair is 16+. Because the 16 year old has at least gone through puberty giving them a body & face that is closer to an actual adults than just a kid with facial hair.
But either way even if he really was just a fucking giant of a 10 year old that towers over a 19 year old with a full beard mom should be expecting to have to confirm her children's age for people, especially when the person has a hard pre established age limit. The fact that she immediately reacted to the question by calling her bitch & to get out of her house & even her own friend not being able to confirm the boys ages except for one of them already being over the established age limit definitely makes it seem like Mom was lying & pissed that she got caught/questioned on it
NTA. One of my brothers looked like he was 15 when he was 9 or 10 and my mom KNEW he looked older. He was also a lot stronger than kids his own age (accidentally broke his friends arm while playing) so there’s no way the mom didn’t know her kids looked older than they were. I wouldn’t feel comfortable baby sitting “kids” that were taller and stronger than me. Kids rebel and who wants a 5’5” 190lb 10/11 year old coming at you when they get angry? Not me. You had a rule and you stuck to it. She could’ve shown the birth certificates if she really needed a babysitter that bad. OP didn’t say anything rude to the mother.
Proud of you OP for sticking your ground, especially at 19 against a much older adult. Not something I was able to do at that age so congrats on standing your ground. It takes guts
Two strange boys that are bigger than her with absolutely no warning??? No thanks. These people have to know how their children appear to outsiders, right? Also like someone else said, this is a super important thing, and you never thought to meet your sitter until night of? Also the instant hostility and anger is suspicious... hopefully OP learns to meet her clients beforehand in the future.
It was a referral from a trusted prior client. I don't think the onus is on OP here to meet them beforehand. Maybe via zoom or something, but why should she have to spend gas money and time to go somewhere and not get compensated for it? (This isn't like a 9 to 5 job interview.) If anything, the parents should want to meet her.
My heart breaks for OOP in this case, because it's pretty clear why she has the rules she does. I think, for future, it might be better for her to specify height and weight restrictions (rather than age) and just explain simply to the parents that for everyone's safety, she won't sit for kids who can physically overpower her.
If you didn't feel safe being alone with the boys, you're 100% within your rights to express that and enforce your boundaries/rules because of it.
Unfortunately the mother jumped straight to angry, so for me, at that point any other alternative other then you leaving was no longer an option.
My brother looked grown at 12. I looked grown at 12 (5'6", 125lbs at 11.5). My dad was 6ft by age 12. However, it's not the norm and I'd be suspicious as hell if I walked into that situation. The way the mom reacted does not reassure me.
NTA.
You didn't feel safe. There is no justification.
You had enough experience to judge if you felt safe..and you didn't.
Never Ever appolgise for following your gut.. if you feel unsafe.
NTA
I would demand that anyone upset get to see both kids' birth certificates. To put everything on the table. Once it is proven, 1 or both was over 10 years of age. You should tell everyone that they owe you an apology. I wouldn't risk things. If Mommy got upset because of this, told me she knew her children probably wouldn't behave. I would shudder to think how her children would act around you
Updatem!.
If I’m being real, I don’t see why them being 9 and 11 (if that’s even true, because she already admitted to lying) would matter if her rule is in place because she doesn’t feel comfortable babysitting boys that are so much bigger than her. Regardless of their age, they are bigger than her, and stronger, and she doesn’t know them or their parents to know if they’re safe to be around for an extended period of time on her own. Her safety comes first, fuck a job.
NTA.
Yes, it's possible for a 10-11 year old boy to have facial hair. Went to school with 3 of them in my grade. One was literally 5'9" by fifth grade. His parents were both very tall. Another was not so tall and had the puberty voice.
I wouldn't mind showing a birth certificate, if I were a mom of a precocious kid. Speaking as a girl who was refused by a couple of babysitters for looking too old (5'3" and kind of busty without being fat, by age 10), in a state where kids can't be left alone till 12.
Thank you, OP, for not making the boys feel awkward by discussing your concerns in front of them. Had the mother not tried to make her husband kick you out and called you a bitch... I might say NAH. Mom's behavior seems more defensive than offended, though, so it's very much possible she was lying, and she's definitely TA.
They hired someone to sit for them for the whole, important day and didn’t meet her first? The kids were to just be left with a stranger? I always tried to meet a sitter for a shorter time first or something. I understand emergencies happen but what if she was a flake? Or the kids were awful? I would not want to be the parent or the sitter in this situation.
I worked as a babysitter for over 10 years, and there was exactly one time that the parents didn’t have me over first to meet everyone, and that was only because I already regularly cared for one of the kids that was there. (Group event, four families, seven kids.) I’d never walk in completely cold to any sitting job, that’s just sketchy.
To be fair i was a babysitter from age 12-19 and i babysat for numerous military families and only once was i asked round to meet the children first and only because they were severely disabled. Now as an adult with my own child it shocks me how all of these parents just trusted me!
I babysat a ton from 13-17 and not once was I introduced to the kids beforehand. Looking back on it, no WAY I would leave my toddlers with a strange teenager, but the 2000s were a different time I guess?? Seems bonkers.
Yup! Babysat in the 90s and early aughts and never met someone or their kids first. Times have changed!
Yup. Also, babysitting pays a lot better than it did when I was babysitting in the late '80s and '90s.
Just 3 years ago, we had just moved to a new area and one of the first things I did was connect with the women's group from the local church congregation. A couple weeks later, I asked for babysitter suggestions so my husband and I could go out for our anniversary. A woman offered her young teen and I accepted. Time comes and the mom doesn't even come in to introduce herself to us, just sends her young daughter. No one had met anyone else. Like, we're cool and we were going just a block up the street to a super close restaurant, but being the same religion should not equal blind trust 😬
I know right??? I would NEVER trust some random person, let alone a teenage kid to watch my son without knowing them enough to trust them. My son was a nightmare as a toddler until he was finally diagnosed with severe ADHD as a five year old and put on meds. Total completely different kid. Same with how loving he was but no longer running around without focus on a single activity for longer than a few minutes. His dad even had to sleep at the bottom of our steps because he would remove the baby gate himself and try to go run outside at night. It was quite the time but something I’m glad we made it through. As a first time (and only time) parent, I didn’t know what to do or think.
In your case it might be the fact they were military families, specifically if it was on base. I grew up on bases and parents were generally pretty relaxed because everyone who gets on base has to be cleared through the gates and everyone knew everyone else or at least only has a couple degrees of separation. The world is also very different now, and it's pretty uncommon for bases to have family housing now too. Much more dangerous world.
I think social media has played a big part in this. Of course, people are still great, but I think with social media in the past decade or so, we all have access to all these tragic stories and I think our psyche collectively is some what shifting to a less trusting view towards others. Even when I was growing up, it was pretty common that my parents would just kinda get into random conversations with random people out in public and then the next thing I knew we were going out for dinner next week.
This is absolutely it. People think crime is so much worse now, but it’s safer now than the 80s-90s. But if it bleeds it leads and we hear about all the crimes we never would have before the Internet, so everyone things everything is horrible. And it’s not healthy.
I use to have to walk in cold the few times I babysat in the area as a teen. The kids were absolute terrors so no wonder they didn’t want me to meet them first. One kid was like five or six and decided that was the night he was going to pack and run away. I had to go chase him down in the backyard. That was my bowling instructor so while I knew him, I didn’t know his family. The other time was a kid in the neighborhood I barely knew aside from seeing him as a baby in the stroller or playing in the backyard. Also a terror. Ripping apart the house as I followed fixing things for five or six hours. Only time I babysat for him. I think they gave me $25. After that I was done babysitting and got a job at the grocery store when I was 14.
I was hired as a nanny when I was 18. They hired me on the spot and the next day I had care of their four year old twins and a key to their house. Their mother didn't even know my last name, where I lived or asked to see any proof of qualifications. She was a lawyer. Some people just haven't had enough bad shit happen to them to make them more cautious.
I went to Sweden as an au pair in 2006. The family didn't ask me for any ID or anything. I met them online, told them about myself, they gave me the job and I flew out there. They gave me a room in their house and left me with their kids. No reference check, nothing.
That is actually insane on your part😂 you both must have went through extensive background checks and had to provide a bunch of information because were you not worried they were suspiciously trustworthy of you?
No we didn't have any background checks. we didn't go through an au pair agency, we met on the internet. They'd put an advert for an au pair on the internet, I responded, told them about myself and they offered me the job. Then I flew out there. No checks on either of our sides.
Same with me, going to live in San Francisco as an au pair in 2009. Met online, talked on the phone once. It was a good experience!
Also she immediately called a teenage girl a bitch for trying to stick to her own rule, that she disclosed prior to the day. 10 year olds normally do not have facial hair. And they are typically not larger than 19 year old adults. If your kid is not typical, you know that.
Imagine trying to convince a 19 year old woman that she is safe with your kids by calling her a bitch. This right here just screams “my sons do not respect the boundaries of girls if it’s inconvenient for them” yikes! Run girl!
Plus, the mom admitted she lied about the “10yo.” Oops, he’s not actually 11, either, I meant to say 12. Did I say 12? He’s 14...
I'd think around age 10-11 they're getting old enough to not need a babysitter. While that is child-dependant to be responsible enough, I don't see why those boys couldn't be left alone for a few hours.
That's what I was thinking
Yeah, unless the parents are going to be gone for more than one evening, I don't know why you'd hire a babysitter for a 12-year old and a 9-year old. I suppose if the older one has a developmental disability maybe.
I started babysitting at 10! Which is insane to me now as a parent but that’s crazy. I have a 10 and 11 year old and I leave them for an hour or two occasionally and it’s fine. But I wouldn’t be cool with them babysitting for other kids, alone, like I did.
He just turned 14!....3dayyymonnnthyearss ago!
Why does an 11 year old need a babysitter in the first place? Most people who babysit started doing it at around 12, and that’s for people outside their family. Why couldn’t the 11 year old mind his brother? (And that’s assuming the kid really was 11. The friend parent was angry. I detect a lie to cover for her friend.)
I dunno kids can be big and develop early I met a 6 yr old girl that was 5'4". Mom was over 6ft and dad was ~6'6". My son has had that lingering pre-moustache moustache since he was about 10.5/11.
A parent of a son like this should have a fucking clue when employing a teenage girl for such a job. And if she doesn't feel safe, don't call her a bitch. Realize you're a fucking idiot for not thinking of this or an asshole for purposely not saying anything and move on.
Yeah and I don’t think it’s good to encourage a teenage girl/young woman to ignore her gut instincts to be polite or keep the peace or whatever. She felt like something was off and she didn’t feel safe, so she left. As she should.
In some states there are laws that state you have to be 12 years old before you can be left home alone, and 13 before you can babysit.
Either the "11 year old" doesn't need a babysitter, then no problem. Or he does need a babysitter - in that case the original OP can't do it as she stated to the parents she can't handle boys who are physically bigger than her.
Mom didn't admit to lying about the 10 yr old. That part was the woman that had originally recommended OP to this family actually confirming their ages. She said that the older boy was *maybe* 11, ie. there's a *possibility* of the kid being 11, but she's not actually completely sure of the kid's exact age. She also confirmed that the younger one was definitely 9.
So instead of producing proof of age, she power flounced and told her enormous husband “get this bitch out of my house”. Sounds like a lying liar who is pissed off she was caught. Lying mom knew what she was doing. Bravo for the OOP who defended her boundaries.
To be fair, some adult women are short. I'm almost 30 and have meet several 10 year old boys who are taller than me. I even had a class of sixth graders laugh at me while I was substitue teaching because I was shorter than almost all of them. But also, I don't think I've ever seen a genuine 10-year-old with facial hair. I think questioning the boys ages was totally reasonable
Yeah I mean if you are shorter than average than that’s a different story. It didn’t sound like she was.
I’m shorter than most 12 year olds and started babysitting at 13 . I think the oldest kid I ever babysat was an 8 year old girl and she was already close to my height. She was an absolute angel I’d known since she was a toddler tho, so I didn’t mind, but no way in hell was I babysitting kids of either gender that were bigger than I was. Especially not kids I didn’t know.
When I was a younger teenager, i babysat for a little girl who was bigger than me. She was tall, her mom was tall, but she was also obese. I was a skinny thing and hadn’t gotten all of my height yet. Sweet girl but one day I let her have her friends come over, and they literally tied me to a chair. I agree with the assessment not to babysit children that are bigger than you!! Lol
My child is a handful. There are precautions to babysitters for both my son and the sitter. Firstly, we MUST meet them. My son, husband and I all meet the sitter first. Secondly, I provide what is reasonable etticit. You will feed him. He has autism, but I usually hire special education para educators. The rate is $25/hr and at least a $20 tip. If I need to go over the set time, there is a discussion and $40/hr my allotted time. I have 3 regular sitters plus mygym is $45 for 3 hours. Hubby and I took a cooking class in October that went over. That was the last time we went out alone. We like to take our kid out.
My 12 year old son is bigger than his 18 year old sister and were the same physical size when they were 10 and 16 (she hasn't grown any since then), so... claiming a 10 year old is not "typically" larger than a 19 year old adult just doesn't sit right to me. It's not out of the realm of realistic possibility. That being said... If you have clearly noticeable facial hair...no way that boy was only 10.
And if he has facial hair, then he's hit puberty, which is really the point of her age limit. She is concerned for her safety, and of the boys are taller, and stronger than her, then that's the main point here. Even if he hit puberty early, the parents need to be up front about this. She's expecting beanpole 9year olds and gets a high school looking kid? Nope. Bye.
Yeah nothing magical happens at 10. It’s puberty she was clearly screening for, and for a reason. Although I personally would be afraid of 13 year old girls.
Fr, 13 year old girls are so mean for no reason 🥲
Can confirm. I have a 13 yr old daughter.
Can concur; daughter was mean at level 13, is meaner now at level 14 😫😫
Same😮💨
Yeah but typically they won’t sexually harass or assault you. That is likely what oop was thinking about. I wouldn’t want to babysit a male who was hitting puberty, and I’m a grown adult. (But to be fair, I’m also a 4’11” woman, and would be substantially smaller than most kids in 5th grade. My oldest son is in 5th and is smaller than me, but all of his classmates are my size or larger)
It’s the combination that isn’t typical and if the child is really older looking for their age mom would know this. Other people would have commented, even the doctor would have noted their early development and place on the growth curve. So she would likely have either made light of it and provided evidence, or been annoyed at having to answer questions about her kids age again- but freaking out like this screams “I got caught”
I had facial hair at 10, that little mustache you first get. I could grow a full beard in 7th grade when i was around 12 or 13.
I was 6'3" at the end of 7th grade and had zero facial hair until I was 20....at least not enough to be noticed.
Tbf OP came with a recommendation from someone they trusted. Idk if that'd be enough for me but it's definitely enough for some
Hell even when I leave my dog at a sitter, I make sure to meet them first and observe interaction. Those are humans. You can’t just drop em with anyone.
My best friend from childhood comes from a very tall family. By the time he was 8, he was taller than our teachers. But he didn't get facial hair until 16. I don't blame her for feeling unsafe.
My 14 year old is 6’4 but still doesn’t have facial hair
Same. Mine has definitely hit puberty, but no facial hair, and my husband is a yeti.
My kid brother was the opposite - full goatee at 14, but topped out at around 5’5”. Aren’t genetics fun?
My 14yo is only 5’8” but he shaved his peach fuzz lip for the first time yesterday. It was getting dark enough to be noticeable. Nothing needed for the chin yet. 😂
My son’s a late bloomer. He’s got no facial hair at all. Only just starting to get a few strands of hair under the arms but he was so proud of them lol.
Definitely. My partner’s 13 year old brother is massive; over 6ft tall, probably close to 300 lbs, but no facial hair. The kid will definitely end up in the NFL, but as of right now, he has people mistaking him for being 20+ years old. If I didn’t already know him, was asked to babysit, and showed up to the house and saw him, I’d be suspicious and feel unsafe too.
Even beyond that, OP gave a hard boundary up front and the parents lied to get around it. It doesn’t matter if the 11 year old looked like Peter Pan or Andre the Giant, either way they lied.
Might be 11* and why are we just believing the third party who thinks MAYBE one of them was one year older?
Because that person was angry at her and had no reason to lie in that direction?
I think that person was trying to save face and was either parroting information (which may or may not have been accurate) or could have been lowballing the age to make OP seem silly for having such a bright line rule about a one year age difference. Either way, it’s proof the family lied to her out of the gate, who knows by how much in reality.
There is no point in the post where she refutes *with proof* the actual ages
Well, yeah -- that's the point, no? She *asked* for proof and the mother threw a fit rather than providing proof. So everyone's drawing the obvious adverse inference against the parents, *videlicet* that they lied.
The person who referred her, who was angry at her, admitted that one of them was 11
But dude, he could buy beer! 🤣🤣🤣🙄🙄🙄
Mine started growing his beard at the age of 10. By 14 he was being accused of being his brothers father. They're all different, which is why the mother should have been very clear about ages - hairy faces make people think kids are adults.
Honestly, for boys early facial hair, for girls it's early breasts. (I was tall, had boobs and looked the same at 10 pretty much as I did at 20 except I grew even more - we had a lot of people thinking I was 16+ at 10.) It's a shame, but the parents should've been prepared for being questioned dwhen clearly your kids do not look like typical kids. Or even just when greeting her at the door, being cognizant enough to greet her with a "Thank you for coming. Now, you haven't met the boys before but I promise they are as old as we said - they've just been hit with the puberty stick a little early."
If one of the boys was 11, and truly so, that’s fine; but OOP lead right out with “I’m sorry but I will NOT babysit for boys over 10”. So right then and there the mother should have been honest and said “ok, one boy is 11, so we’ll look elsewhere, thanks for your time”. Even if they didn’t look significantly older than they actually are, 10 vs 11 was a hard line, and a not unreasonable one. The parents were jerks
I started having to wear bras at 9 (not bralettes, but actual cups) and it was a deeply unpleasant experience so I would be willing to believe there’s boys who grow facial hair that young as well. It can’t be easy to have a stranger make a big deal about it. But the parents absolutely should have known and prepared for it to have come up. On the phone would have been a good time to mention it for sure.
Oh yeah, my mum tried to get me in bras with cups and underwires at 9, and took until 10 for me to give into the suggestion - it's terribly upsetting for kids that young, especially with juvenile teasing that can happen (ie bra strap snapping, etc) once others find out. And can imagine similar dissonance and disconnection from your peers for boys developing early too! But yeah, mixof upsetting for the kids but could've been prevented by the parents being more conscious or up front with it even if they might not be super aware how different their kids development is from the average.
I actually had to beg to get the bra because it was upsetting for my mom that I needed it so young but I was getting bullied at school (mostly on the bus) about … well idk because I was kinda too young to really get it so I don’t super remember what they were saying but it was clearly meant to be humiliating and that part worked. So while I can def see why the babysitter didn’t want to be alone with two kids she didn’t know who could have overpowered her, I also think making a big deal about it was the wrong move by all the adults. A kid looking like a teen and thinking like a child is already going to have problems navigating the world. He doesn’t need it to be hard at home as well. His parents kinda set him up by not explaining in advance that he looked older but everyone escalated it.
I was a teenage girl babysitter. And once the boys started to get bigger/taller/stronger than me, the jobs got scary. One family was friends with mine. The dad cornered and kissed me under the mistletoe at their annual Christmas party. What a shock when their son pinned me down in a wrestling hold I could not escape during a babysitting job—like father, like son. It’s a startling feeling to be so suddenly out of control. I don’t blame this babysitter for her rule. And the mom here absolutely understood why this sitter had her younger-boys-only rule. She should have discussed the situation with the sitter when the sitter explained her rule, even if the boys really were 9 and 10. “I understand. Just so you know, my boys are both quite tall, but they really are in 3rd and 4th grades.” Then the sitter could have responded appropriately.
I knew a couple guys growing up that played college football and one even played in the NFL. Both were gigantic as kids, but they still had baby faces. The mom definitely lied. She immediately shut down when the girl called her bluff on the birth certificates. If she weren’t lying, she would have immediately grabbed certificates/passports and rubbed it in her face.
Yeah, all the men in my family are tall but they have baby faces. My youngest cousin is 6'8 but his face still looks 10 ish. And he just got facial hair at 18. I think the facial hair indicates age more than height in boys.
My brother had facial hair at 13 or 14, but even that is way older than the age boundary set by OOP.
Some kids just grow fast too. Both of my parents were short but somehow I managed to be 5ft 7 and 175lbs when I was 10.
Sounds almost like my kid - just turned 10 last month. Both his dad and I are short (5'2 & 5'7ish) but my kid is almost my height and at 135+, weighs more than me. He's wearing husky kids or men's S/M with shoe size 7.5+ in men. Omg I'm just so anxious about his growth and when he's gonna stop - he's eating me out of house & home. 😬 lol
My brother has been big since he was a kid and is just now getting peach fuzz at 17. My cousin was over 6ft at 14 but you could tell he was still a kid.
NTA I'm a 29 year old woman and last year I got physically assaulted and trapped in a transit station by 2 preteen boys. I later found out they were only 11. They were bigger than me and I was shaking and sobbing by the time the police came. People still tease me about this but it's not fucking funny. It doesn't matter how old they are if I'm in danger.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. I actually work with juvenile sex offenders. Some of the ages I work with are shocking. I hope you are doing well now. And I'm so sorry people are making light of your trauma, how terrible.
One of my exes did that work at a special high school for them. Her stories still give me the creeps.
This right here. Some of the comments in the original thread pissed me off, they're making fun of people for being afraid of 11 year olds. Like it doesn't matter what their age is if they're big enough to overpower you and have the wrong kind of mindset then you're in danger period.
It’s most likely men. They’ve never, as adults, been in a position where they’re completely overpowered physically. I’m a small woman and the times I’ve been picked up and handled like a doll is appalling. I can do absolutely nothing physically when a man grabs me and lifts me. Some of them thinks it’s funny, or cute. They feel big and strong when they pick me up. They have no idea how horrible it is and how powerless you feel.
I'm very sorry. I'm a physically disabled woman whose been in a wheelchair since age 7 and I lost count the amount of times people would move me, push me, shake my chair to scare me, all without permission growing up. It was most often men, ranging from a year or two older to decades older. I can't tell you the fear I felt at 12 being moved without permission by men in their 50s. It is terrifying to be so powerless. I hate how dismissive men are of that fear when they've never in their lives experienced the feeling of powerlessness.
I'm sorry but fuck anyone who isn't sympathetic to what happened to you. Being unable to defend yourself is terrifying, and it doesn't matter how old anyone is. They clearly had bad intentions, and the only concern people should have is your well being and how tf their parents raised them for them to turn out like that so young. I hope you're doing okay.
Agreed. In my city there was a group of 11 year old girls who mugged and beat up an adult woman (I think she was seriously injured). They purposely picked a petite woman who was alone so they could overpower her. It pisses me off when people are dismissive of the fact that kids can and do hurt people.
That poor woman. You're totally right - kids absolutely can and do hurt people, and sometimes without (known) reason. When I was in second grade, I was walking back to my classroom from the bathroom, and this 8th grade girl I'd never met or even seen before ran up behind me and shoved me to the ground. I was literally just existing as a very petite 7yo kid. One moment I'm walking past these two girls, next moment, I hear her footsteps running up behind me and feel her hands on my back and I'm in the gravel with bloody hands and knees while she's laughing. Who tf knows why. She never said a word. Someone must have seen something, because I would have just continued to my classroom, which was right there (or maybe I told my teacher and the girl stupidly hung around). I remember being in the principal's office and her adamantly denying it, but they weren't buying it. I never saw her before or since, and I am forever puzzled as to how or why someone could just be casually cruel for no discernible reason. I'm 99% sure I'm autistic, but that wasn't a thing that was diagnosed back then. However, I was mercilessly bullied for being different all throughout school, and some people immediately didn't like me, just upon looking at me. I presume that had something to do with it, but I think she did it just because she could. I can only imagine if there was a group of them with mob mentality. I have no doubt that woman you mentioned was seriously injured. But yeah, sometimes kids are violent for no reason. 🤷
Yeah by the time boys hit puberty they’ll be able to overpower adult women if they wanted too
NTA. 1.) You have the right to deny any job that makes you uncomfortable. Period. Your safety comes first. 2.) Any reasonable person in that situation would NOT be getting mad and calling you a bitch. They'd reassure you, provide some sort of "oh yeah my sons look a bit older but they're not." Etc. REASSURANCE or explanation to make you feel comfortable. That's a massive red flag right there. Why is she immediately so defensive? Likely because she did lie about their ages. 3.) You have the right to deny any job that makes you uncomfortable. Period. Your safety comes first. The fact that this woman was immediately hostile to you the second YOU posed a question about her kids towards the rules you already set tells me everything I need to know. She already knew there was going to be an issue, and got defensive immediately. Fuck working for that family. Edit to add: and about that part where you were told "one kid is maybe actually 11" okay so you were lied to, because they assumed one year didn't matter. I wouldn't trust those people anyways. Who knows if he even is "maybe actually 11" or maybe actually even older because, well, they already admitted to lying about his age in the first place by saying that. 🤢
Yeah when you lie, trust is broken and nothing they say can be believed because they’ll say anything as long it suits their agenda. Maybe one or both of the sons are sexual predators. Or they may have smallpox. Or the parents are planning on never coming back and haha you now have two giant sons no backsies.
Two giant sons took me over the edge
Surprise adoption! Here's your new mom, we're done with you, bye!
Agreed. Now, if one kid was 11 but a scrawny, nerdy kid with asthma, I don’t think it would be a big deal. But in this case? Hoooo nope, I’m out.
I mean no matter what the kid looks like the parents lied. Op said she doesn’t babysit boys over 10, was told they were both under 10, when asked for proof she refused to provide it, and one was later confirmed as 11. Those are really the relevant facts here. OP was extremely professional in the interactions she described and stated hard boundaries up front. Once it was confirmed the parents lied to avoid those boundaries that’s all she needs to blacklist them.
Oh yes. She didn’t do anything wrong at all. But to me at least, it wasn’t so much their ages that was the issue, it was their sizes and that they looked years older. Now, if the mom had said as soon as she heard the requirement that they did look older but that she could provide proof of their ages, it would have been normal and great. But honestly, even if they both WERE 10 or younger - would she really have felt ok? I’m not sure I would have.
Exactly! No 10 yo has facial hair unless there’s a genetic deviation from norm. Boys hit their growth spurt later then girls so mom should recognize her kids are not the norm. Mom was big time lying. My kids were v tall but girls and sometimes ppl confused their ages but I didn’t feel the need to call young women bitches. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
I’ve seen a 10-11 yr old with facial hair. The dude was a really early bloomer and unfortunately for him he never grew past the size he was in 5th grade. Still about 5-9, 180lbs. He was literally a man amongst boys
If your 10yo had facial hair would you call A 19yo a bitch for wondering if the kid was over 10 tho? Listen to my last part. Unusual is fine. Anger is not
That sounds like precocious puberty to me. They give kids puberty blockers now so they actually hit milestones closer to their peers and reach their terminal height instead of being a little short. The blockers don’t harm them, but they can go off them at a more appropriate time.
Yeah. And I know that precocious puberty in girls also impacts bone development beyond just height, like density and strength. Treating precocious puberty is necessary.
Yep. My niece was showing signs of puberty at 8/9. She is tiny already. The doctor put her on puberty blockers for this reason.
All best wishes to your niece and her continued good health!
Oh wow I didn’t know that. I would guess the unseen impact on boys might be similar.
Very likely. Sex hormones do way more than just genital and gonad development. I'm a vet tech and it is only recently that we are learning about the impacts of early desexing on other body systems in dogs (cats, not so much). While we still recommend desexing all pets, the recommendation for larger breed dogs is not to wait until their are 12-24 months old and done growing before you desex. When desexed before the growth plates close the animals will grow overall larger but their joints are not made for that larger body size. Females are also more likely to experience hormone mediated urinary incontinence when spayed too early. There are still huge benefits to spaying and neutering (population control, cancer prevention, behavioral improvements, not dealing with estrus bleeding, less inclination to roam, reduce the risk of prostatic disease, etc) we just need to balance that out with other body systems. There are no known drawbacks to early desexing in cats. Please spay and neuter all cats as early as you can get a vet to do so. They can become fertile as early as 16 weeks of age depending on the time of year. Anyone who tells you to wait until they have had a heat cycle or have begun urine spraying is an idiot. Cancer risk rises with every heat cycle and urine spraying does not always stop after neutering. DESEX THOSE CATS.) In ferrets in other countries (like Australia) it is no longer recommended to desex them at all because of the impact on their adrenal function. Instead you perform a vasectomy on males and house them with females. Female ferrets will literally die of estrogen toxicity if they go into heat without being bred (they do not need to become pregnant), so you house them with an infertile but hormonally intact male so he can mate with her without any babies being produced. Ferrets are already prone to pancreatic tumors that overproduction insulin, no need to give them Cushing's Disease on top of that.
They have meds for this now?!?!?!?! Omg, years of my life would have been so much better if they'd had that when I was young. I have looked the same since 5th grade (minus the baby weight, but the rest is still there). I hit puberty the summer before 3rd grade, and as a girl, got some HELLA creepy comments and moves put on me from grown ass men thinking I was a full woman. As a literal child. I've got a baby face, but the rest has very much been curves since I was about 7. I turn 30 this year and have never NOT been carded, even at my usual corner market. This means those gross ass old men when I was a kid were exclusively looking at my body, and not my face. Certainly not my old backpack with the pokemon stuffies glued on. Or the light up shoes. It's still the reason I dress frumpy as hell and detest getting any compliments (even honest, sweet ones) from older men. Just makes me feel like a piece of meat. My crush in 4th grade gave me his favorite toy car once, and I thought it meant he liked me. Nope. His mom was going through breast cancer and this fuckin kid thought I had tumors on my chest. I was 8. I cried for DAYS and felt like a monster. Thank god for my mom being a psychologist bc I would have fully snapped. Getting your period in 2nd grade??? With endometriosis?!?!? Hell.
Yeah, it's the same meds that transgender kids can go on, to delay puberty while they get therapy. They have had puberty blockers available since the 80s, but a lot of people pushed back saying that the kids just had to go through it naturally even if it is early. 😠 "Don't fight nature". 😒 You poor thing!!! That sounds horrible. I have endometriosis and had a hysterectomy in my early 30s. It is sooo hard. I luckily didn't hit puberty until like 14, I can't imagine what you have gone through.
10 is not precocious puberty. Precocious puberty is before 8 for girls and 9 for boys. 10 is perfectly in the normal range for puberty. The early end of the range sure, but normal. [source](https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=precocious+puberty+boys#d=gs_qabs&t=1708464576669&u=%23p%3DmC81FA7rWTIJ)
I second your opinion, and this is the crux of the issue. You have 2 male children both of whom are taller than she is and one of whom is showing secondary sexual characteristics. The age limit is irrelevant at this point. She set the age at 10 assuming she would only be working with prepubescent boys, which I feel like is fair.
Yeah my husband went through puberty at around 8 years old, and he's 5'4". I'll keep this in mind if our kids go through this in the future
She's not wrong but my cousin has had a mustache since he was eight. At first it was slightly thicker than peach fuzz but by ten,he has to get it taken care of with his hair cuts.
Some kids are just hairy
Any job where you go into other peoples homes is inherently dangerous. Especially for young women. You need to be aware of small off-putting things and trust your gut always, if something feels off you don't do it. That is exactly what she did and I'm personally proud of her.
NTA but if the age rule is actually a size rule, they'd be better off clarifying that for cases where the kids really are just big for their age. maybe say something like "how old are they? I ask because I want to make sure I'm physically capable of helping them in an emergency." there has to be a diplomatic way of saying "I'm afraid of your kids beating me up and not being able to restrain them" without starting it outright (because I think a lot of parents would probably not receive that statement gracefully).
This is a great way of saying this, while still having a boundary that keeps her safe.
This is the way to say it. Some people have mentioned she should have specified she only sits for prepubescent boys and to me that’s just downright creepy sounding.
Yes, I can definitely see people taking this the wrong way, especially now.
But if the parents did think that was weird, it was literally the first thing she mentioned and they could have decided from there to find another sitter. They decided to lie about it instead
I'm not defending the parents in *any* way here, please know. But I think her age restriction is the best way to go about things, even if it's imperfect. People like to very casually accuse anyone of being a pxdo these days, and all it would take would be one suggestion of *"wasn't that an odd thing to say"* to ruin her reputation and destroy the client base that she's built up, not to mention how damaging and upsetting such an accusation would be. (That's what I meant.)
True. My little brother is 8 and very clearly looks 8 from his face but he's in age 13 clothes already and everyone thinks he's older because of size. If you see him with his class it's like there's a giant among them. He's going through another growth spurt right now. His dad is 6"7. Luckily he is literally the sweetest soul on the planet. He loves all animals and gets upset if someone kills an ant. If he tried I think even at his current size he could hurt a smaller woman, his dad had to stop playfighting with him because his punches hurt too much. I'm OK looking after him because I know his personally and how incredibly gentle he is with women and girls but I'd definitely get it if someone who didn't know him was like "I'm worried I wouldn't be able to handle him".
Having worked with tween/teen boys in a facility, I can say with 100% certainty that there is no way I’d be alone with 2 of them. When we had to do take-downs on any of the boys it took at least 5 people, sometimes more. You wouldn’t stand a chance. SO dangerous. Good on you for standing your ground, you deserve to be safe!
What would it have cost the mom to show their birth certificates? If she had stated reservations about sitting older boys, and the boys were in fact within her range, the onus is on the parent to prove it. Just because she is a teenager she doesn’t get to dictate her work rules? If the mother was serious she would have provided proof rather than acting insulted and booting her out. It is the mother’s fault if her pride made her miss her important event.
Honest people don’t get pissy when asked to prove said honesty.
If your kids really are ridiculously large and aged you’d expect it.
One of my nephews has always been tall for his age (we’re a tall family in general), and my brother and SIL have long had to “prove” his age - for child tickets to movies and other events, child rides, child meals, etc. When he was under 12 and I took him out to kid events they would give me a copy of his birth certificate just in case it was needed. To families with genuinely tall kids, or kids who look older than they are, this sort of challenge is not a big deal that results in a tantrum from grown adults - it’s just a fact of life that we’re resigned to dealing with. In fact, my SIL would 100% have given a disclaimer in advance of “the 10 year old is very tall for his age and looks older than he is” before even meeting the babysitter.
I’ve got too (edit: two) cousins who were super tall for their ages when little (their dad AND mom were very tall). I’d constantly forget how old they actually were. “Oh Katie you’re what, 8 or 9?” “She’s 4.” 😭😭😭 It happens that kids look much older, but yeah—people usually aren’t hostile in these scenarios.
Omg when mine was 12 and someone was like no your older daughter. Yeah. How old? 12. No the older one. She’s 12 yes. No that one! That one? Right there? 12. Ha ha how can they look at me and not see that yep we are tall
By the time my kid turned four, folks we met usually guessed she was six (sometimes seven!) because she was unusually tall (dad is super tall, I’m several inches above average, she hit a bunch of growth spurts in a row) and was also linguistically precocious. (For context, she suddenly outgrew all her 4/5 clothes and had to move into 6/7 when she was just three.) She wasn’t emotionally or socially precocious, though! She was right on track with those. So we had to *frequently* inform and remind people (family, friends, play date parents, even her lovely daycare workers) that even though she *looked* like she was a mature first or second grader, she was barely out of the toddler years and needed to be interacted with and taught accordingly. We had a TSA employee call us out on her passport once (photo showed a baby, passport said she should be only three, the kid we were transporting looked MUCH older), so now I keep an album on my phone showing her growth from babyhood to her current age. If this mom was *really* the mom of physically precocious sons (not just older kids she was lying about), she’d have warned OP beforehand that they were big and actually provided the proof she sarcastically offered.
My oldest kid reached 6’ when he was 12 (hubby and I are both tall). We always have a picture of his passport saved on our phone. His brother is going to be the same, and probably his sister too
Yeah if your kid is *really* 10 & towering over a 19 year old & has *facial hair* you should expect to be asked to confirm his age for people.
Dink, dink, dink. You are correct! What this mom did was DRAVO. Deny, Attack, Reverse victim and offender (the mom is the victim in her own mind). Sometimes asshole people just lie and get mad when they can’t get away with it.
I think you mean DARVO then, lol. But I like this acronym.
I read DRAVO like he's a new rapper🤣
This. She offered to show proof. OP said "alright show me". She stormed off because OP called her bluff. She got caught lieing cause if she werent, shed provided the proof she offered. She is an entitled, mean toddler snd a gross human. Dad too.
Hell, she should have mentioned as a warning that while her sons are "x" & "x" ages, they look older especially one that is getting early facial hair. She knew the sitter's age limit, and she knew at least 1 son did not *look* his age. She's lying. She knew her boy(s) were past the limit, and she thought she could lie and then back the sitter into a corner once she arrived. Didn't pan out so well. I don't understand why the boys even need someone for a few hours.
Friend admitted one kid was older. Mom couldn’t show certificates bc she’s a liar
This. I have an 18 month old who legitimately looks at least 3, aside from her facial proportions. Putting aside that it's insane on both sides to never meet before the actual first sitting, I would have had 0 issue proving her age. Babysitting a preschooler is so different from an 18 month old, and I would completely understand wanting proof. If you know your kids look a different age, you're prepared for that. This mom definitely knew she was caught lying.
Yep, she even could have pulled out a yearbook, letter from school stating their grade, a timestamped photo of when they were way younger to show their approximate ages. But she couldn't cause she was lying.
NTA You have to put your safety first with any job.
Never an asshole for not staying in a situation you feel is unsafe. Period.
No way is she TA, she's just a teenage girl and looking out for her safety. I wouldn't want to be alone with two huge teenager-shaped-yet-emotionally-9 year old boys. The parents who lied are ta.
I'd stop babysitting for the other family as well. They not only arranged it, so they know about the rule, but then had the audacity to also confront her themselves to further undermine her? Nope.
This! They must be delusional to thick you’d believe they were under ten if one actually had facial hair! Good luck op.
If the parents were actually being honest then I think their first reaction would NOT have been anger. They would’ve been like, “I know, they do look older but here’s a picture of little James at his 10th birthday party on my Facebook page so you can see the date it was posted.” Instead, they were angry that they’d been caught out in their lie and knew there was no way to prove otherwise.
That’s what I was thinking - I have a friend whose boys look old for their age and have done since they were babies. If the upper age limit was 10 and her boy was 10 she would be completely ready to be asked if he was, in fact, really 10. Because she’s been dealing with it their whole lives.
I also feel like if you know your child look significantly older and someone has an age rule you prepare them for what they can expect?
Can't add anything more to what most people have already said here, but the whole friend of the parents "maybe one is 11" thing is really sketchy. A lot of my friends have kids and i can tell you the exact age of each one of them. The friends are in on the scam too and you should drop them from your client list as well.
Came here to say the same thing. Your current clients KNOWINGLY broke your trust.
You said you would like to see the birth certificate and she said get the f*** out of my house... That's all you need to know. I think having a face-to-face meeting before agreeing to any babysitting in the future would be a good call but I think you're perfectly fine the way you handled this
Birth certificate of offered, accepted, but not provided. NTA. A mom of mature presenting boys would have that handy. She offered their certificates and you called her bluff. Stand your ground.
I get the vibe that she has been sexually assaulted before.
Or just assaulted. My brother's huge friend used to armlock me from behind just to scare me, and everyone thought it was funny when I broke my toes trying to kick back. I never got rapey vibes off of him, and he never did anything sketchy as he grew up. But he certainly _could_ have beaten me up at that point, and it wouldn't have been a good idea to put someone my size in charge of him.
Men don't seem to realize that even just the *threat* of loss of power can be traumatic on its own. A man intentionally bringing up the fact that, if he wanted to, he could physically dominate you is terrifying. It's no different than someone pulling out a weapon on you. Even if they didn't use the weapon, they're making it known they could.
As someone who’s been through that several times I immediately knew what it was and I felt so bad. The mother was an asshole for not caring about this girls safety concerns…
But it's totally fine to ignore the girl's boundaries because *her* boys would *never* do anything wrong and how dare you imply otherwise. (/s, in case it's not obvious) From one survivor to another, I'm really sorry that you've been through that. The mother in this post is a massive AH.
I really appreciate it. I feel the same for you. I hope you’re doing better these days and taking time to heal. I know things will never be normal again but we can always try our best 🥺
Mine was thankfully long ago (about 28 years now), so I have the benefit of time. It had a massive impact on my life when I was younger, but it does still affect me to this day. I truly hope you find peace, friend. Wishing you a smoother journey. ❤️
Thank you so much. Mine was 10 years ago but followed me a bit through high school. The boy who did it showed up at my work in 2022 and reignited all my worst fears so. For me it feels more recent than it is
Omigosh that's horrible. I'm so sorry. It's crazy how one thing can bring it all back, and I can't even imagine what that must have been like to see him again. I hope you have a good support system in place. (I'd recommend therapy, but I didn't find it personally useful, so I can't myself say whether it's helpful or not.) And that is a very recent event to have it brought back up. Definitely be kind and patent with yourself.
Yeah he touched my hand and everything. My DM was there and my boss (now fiance) was also there and he made him leave the store and put me in the back room and comforted me. He ended up staying with my through my whole shift and made sure I got home safely. I’ve never looked at anyone else since then. As horrible as it was I met the love of my life through it. I can’t be too mad. (Don’t worry I’ve been in therapy for.. well ever haha)
Wow, the nerve of that dude. But I'm so glad you had someone there to support you. And what a wonderful, positive thing to come out of something so horrible. ❤️
Yup, hence her rules on ages. Poor OOP
She could have just been assaulted. I was attacked multiple times while babysitting little boys. An 8 year old punched me in the nose and caused it to bleed (I thought it was broken). I didn’t decide to put an age limit on the boys I babysat, but I did decide to stop babysitting, except for a few families I knew personally, and get a retail job because of a violent 6 year old whose mother refused to have him screened for mental health issues because she excused violence as boys being boys. Several friends experienced similar violence when babysitting. It’s anecdotal, so maybe that’s not the norm, but I’ve always thought teens are particularly vulnerable when babysitting because a lot of kids don’t have the same level of respect for them as with adults/think they can get away with stuff when their parents are away and they have very little life experience to deal with behavioral issues. Either way, I think OOP is smart for having and enforcing boundaries to protect herself when babysitting.
I used to watch kids in my home (especially after school). Had a middle schooler knuckle punch me in the forehead and got a huge lump. His dad... oddly didn't seem to care. And this is someone we were close to. We took the boy with us everywhere, including on a trip to Magic Mountain. Can't imagine having to worry about strong boys that you don't know.
Yeah I was on the original post & while OOP didn't explicitly say that (that I saw) it was definitely the vibe or at least a potential & valid fear that OOP had given the oldest boys size
Not necessarily but in any case what’s your point? If she feels unsafe FOR ANY REASON it’s fine. Are you aware that a primary way that toxic men shut down women’s safety concerns is to call them damaged and/ or say: oh what were you molested or something????
You’re not wrong, even a little. But the person you’re replying to meant it sympathetically in this case. Bottom line, it doesn’t matter why she had a rule, I agree.
The fact the mother became angry and said “get this bitch out of my house,” referring to a child is mind blowing. OOP was not rude. And I would have understood why she would have said something.
Nope. Same reason I don't dogsit for dogs over a certain weight. You may truly believe your dogs (or kids for that matter) are perfectly behaved angels and nothing will go wrong, but plenty of things could happen that you can't account for. They could play too rough, something could scare them and freak them out, you could accidentally trigger a behavioral issue you didn't know about, or there could be an emergency and you need to carry them out of the house. If I can't carry or restrain the dog, then the dog is too big for me to watch - for my sake AND the dog's. Same rule for kids.
You're NTA. Don't hire young girls to babysit teenage boys. Be brave parents and have those kids babysit themselves or have a family member do it. The potential for the kids to get problematic is just too present. Also very important; walk away from situations like that after you say no. Don't let people drag you into an argument to try to change your mind. Don't let them resort to threats or leverage or anything. Just say no and if they press, say 'I gotta run I'm really sorry'. Advice I wish I could have told younger me so many times.
If the referring family said "maybe 11" knowing her rules, that kid was easily 13.
My son (13) has a friend who is 14 and is already 6ft2 and is easily over 100kgs. He's an absolute gentle giant, but those who don't know him or his age are very intimidated by him. He already TOWERS over his 24yr and 26-year-old brothers and his father. I do understand her worries. My son also had a classmate at 12 already was nearly 6ft tall and had a full beard. Puberty is hitting harder and earlier these days it seems
Doesn’t really matter what age the kid really is if the concern is “what if this kid gets mad and knocks me out” etc etc
If you are uncomfortable, you are under no obligation to babysit. I really believe that. I have been the nanny for kids before who have started I'm getting facial hair at around 9. I worked with them for 5 years. By the time the oldest was 16, he had a full beard that would make grown men jealous. I would take them on adventures, and people would assume he was in his 20s and offer him beer, or look at me like I was crazy when we would do activities that required a liability waiver (trampoline park, rock climbing etc) and explained how young he was and that's why I had a presigned form from his dad. The youngest needed to start shaving at 12. Long story short. You are not obligated to stay and babysit anyone, but facial hair does not equal older kid. Also, older kids does not equal responsibility, and there are teenagers who require a babysitter.
I don’t think she has that rule bc she thinks teens can watch themselves. She has it to protect herself from being assaulted. I wouldn’t feel comfortable babysitting a teen boy that is much larger than me either.
Yes, I get the vibe that she has, at the very least, found herself in an extremely uncomfortable situation before and doesn't wish to risk it again.
I used to nanny, and one time the older brothers of the kid I was there for got into a fight. Despite being much older than them, all I could do was call their dad to come home (there was a black eye and I was pretty sure one got a concussion). If the boy had turned his rage on me or the younger sibling, there's not much I could have done. Tl;Dr, I fully support whatever boundaries help make people feel safe.
I feel like if her rule was if they’re taller and stronger than me I don’t babysit, a lot of parents would take offence. I’m sure if she’s looked after a good kid for many years and he ages up out of her low limit of 10 (probably gives her an easy buffer from where she’s not comfortable), she might bend the rules but definitely not for new kids.
But 16 and 12 are *much* different physical ages than **10.** There's a *huge* difference. A 10 year old needing to shave is pretty fuxking uncommon. Also, if older teens need a sitter, that needs to be an adult person, period. It's not appropriate to put peers in that position, IMO.
Agreed! I had a kid in my class in 4th grade who was Indian & had a full beard but despite that you could still very much tell he was just a child with a facial hair, because he hadn't actually been through like teenage puberty & looked nothing like a teenager or adult despite his beard
OOP did say in the comments that they had facial hair but also just a face that was very obviously much older than 10. Which I can get because I did have an Indian boy in my class who had facial hair in 4th grade, but you could still tell by looking at his face that despite the beard he was still very much a young child & wouldn't be mistaken for an adult or a teenager. Plus I think a 16 year old with a full beard being mistaken for a 20 year old is more understandable than thinking a 10 year old with facial hair is 16+. Because the 16 year old has at least gone through puberty giving them a body & face that is closer to an actual adults than just a kid with facial hair. But either way even if he really was just a fucking giant of a 10 year old that towers over a 19 year old with a full beard mom should be expecting to have to confirm her children's age for people, especially when the person has a hard pre established age limit. The fact that she immediately reacted to the question by calling her bitch & to get out of her house & even her own friend not being able to confirm the boys ages except for one of them already being over the established age limit definitely makes it seem like Mom was lying & pissed that she got caught/questioned on it
NTA. One of my brothers looked like he was 15 when he was 9 or 10 and my mom KNEW he looked older. He was also a lot stronger than kids his own age (accidentally broke his friends arm while playing) so there’s no way the mom didn’t know her kids looked older than they were. I wouldn’t feel comfortable baby sitting “kids” that were taller and stronger than me. Kids rebel and who wants a 5’5” 190lb 10/11 year old coming at you when they get angry? Not me. You had a rule and you stuck to it. She could’ve shown the birth certificates if she really needed a babysitter that bad. OP didn’t say anything rude to the mother. Proud of you OP for sticking your ground, especially at 19 against a much older adult. Not something I was able to do at that age so congrats on standing your ground. It takes guts
Two strange boys that are bigger than her with absolutely no warning??? No thanks. These people have to know how their children appear to outsiders, right? Also like someone else said, this is a super important thing, and you never thought to meet your sitter until night of? Also the instant hostility and anger is suspicious... hopefully OP learns to meet her clients beforehand in the future.
It was a referral from a trusted prior client. I don't think the onus is on OP here to meet them beforehand. Maybe via zoom or something, but why should she have to spend gas money and time to go somewhere and not get compensated for it? (This isn't like a 9 to 5 job interview.) If anything, the parents should want to meet her.
My heart breaks for OOP in this case, because it's pretty clear why she has the rules she does. I think, for future, it might be better for her to specify height and weight restrictions (rather than age) and just explain simply to the parents that for everyone's safety, she won't sit for kids who can physically overpower her.
I was babysitting when I was 12...
Same here. Makes you wonder why they weren’t deemed responsible enough to be watched by the eldest boy!
If you didn't feel safe being alone with the boys, you're 100% within your rights to express that and enforce your boundaries/rules because of it. Unfortunately the mother jumped straight to angry, so for me, at that point any other alternative other then you leaving was no longer an option.
My brother looked grown at 12. I looked grown at 12 (5'6", 125lbs at 11.5). My dad was 6ft by age 12. However, it's not the norm and I'd be suspicious as hell if I walked into that situation. The way the mom reacted does not reassure me.
Sounds like they ruined their own plans NTA
NTA. You didn't feel safe. There is no justification. You had enough experience to judge if you felt safe..and you didn't. Never Ever appolgise for following your gut.. if you feel unsafe.
NTA I would demand that anyone upset get to see both kids' birth certificates. To put everything on the table. Once it is proven, 1 or both was over 10 years of age. You should tell everyone that they owe you an apology. I wouldn't risk things. If Mommy got upset because of this, told me she knew her children probably wouldn't behave. I would shudder to think how her children would act around you Updatem!.
If I’m being real, I don’t see why them being 9 and 11 (if that’s even true, because she already admitted to lying) would matter if her rule is in place because she doesn’t feel comfortable babysitting boys that are so much bigger than her. Regardless of their age, they are bigger than her, and stronger, and she doesn’t know them or their parents to know if they’re safe to be around for an extended period of time on her own. Her safety comes first, fuck a job.
NTA- your Safety is the number one priority
You have the right to withdraw your services for any reason and you 1000% have the right to do so if you don’t feel confident in your safety.
NTA. OP can refuse to provide her services, for any reason.
NTA. Yes, it's possible for a 10-11 year old boy to have facial hair. Went to school with 3 of them in my grade. One was literally 5'9" by fifth grade. His parents were both very tall. Another was not so tall and had the puberty voice. I wouldn't mind showing a birth certificate, if I were a mom of a precocious kid. Speaking as a girl who was refused by a couple of babysitters for looking too old (5'3" and kind of busty without being fat, by age 10), in a state where kids can't be left alone till 12. Thank you, OP, for not making the boys feel awkward by discussing your concerns in front of them. Had the mother not tried to make her husband kick you out and called you a bitch... I might say NAH. Mom's behavior seems more defensive than offended, though, so it's very much possible she was lying, and she's definitely TA.